modern and contemporary photography at grisebach
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Fasanenstraße 25, 10719 Berlin T +49 30 885915 0, F +49 30 88241 45, [email protected]
grisebach.com
On Wednesday 31 May over 200 lots of modern and con-temporary photography will be auctioned at Grisebach in Berlin.
One star lot in this season’s sale is a vintage or early gelatine silver print by Albert Renger-Patzsch, “Bäumchen“ (“Little Tree”) of 1929 (38.4 x 27.8 cm). This is a piece of the highest rank: thanks to its powerful presence, a sophisti-cated composition, and the undoubted technical and artis-tic virtuosity of the photographer (estimate €40,000 / 60.000). The systematic botanical photographs of Karl Blossfeldt also occupy an important place in the history of photography. In these works Blossfeldt emphasised both the physicality and the graphic quality of the individual plants. A rare vintage print of a leaf of the “Crysanthemum segetum” (1915/25) is offered in the sale with an estimate price of €25,000/30,000.
The photograph “Borsig Locomotive Works, Berlin” (c. 1930), by the American photographer Margaret Bourke-White, provides a highly unusual and expertly composed view of two elements for a locomotive engine. This photo-graph (€20.000/30.000) was likely taken as reportage. Bourke-White was an early pioneer in this field and was par-ticularly renowned for her work with LIFE magazine.
Further highpoints within this season’s sale are two photomontages by El Lissitzky for the journal “USSR im BAU” (c. 1937, each €5,000/7,000); Berenice Abbott‘s “Nightview, New York“ (€ 8,000/12,000); Jaromir Funke‘s “Stillleben III. Vera Violetta“ (€ 8,000/12,000); two vintage prints by Umbo (Otto Umbehr); photographs taken with the first German “Fisheye-Kamera“ (each € 5,000/7,000); the Alfred Stieglitz photogravure “The Steerage“ (1907), per-haps the best-known motif from his ground-breaking maga-zine “Camera Work“ (€ 6,000/8,000); and further photo-graphs by Aenne Biermann, Andreas Feininger, Robert Frank, Otto Steinert, Josef Sudek and Yva, among others.
21 photographs from the time of Germany’s division are collected in a special series within the auction: the dif-ferences and similarities between life in the east and west made visual by photographers including Christian Borchert, Kurt Buchwald, Arno Fischer, Leonard Freed, Bernard Larsson, Joachim Richau, Evelyn Richter and Frank Thiel.
Helmut Newton’s „Nastassia Kinski and Marlene Dietrich doll, Hollywood“ (€12,0000/15,000) is among the key lots of contemporary photography, along with Beate Gütschow’s monumental fictional city landscape “S#26“ (€10,000/15,000). Further impressive works on offer in-clude Sherrie Levine’s 1990 “After Karl Blossfeldt“ (€ 6,000/8,000), Thomas Florschütz’s “Diptychon Nr. 133“ (€ 5,000/7,000), Rineke Dijkstra‘s young bullfighter “Ven-das Novas, Portugal“ (€ 4,500/5,500) and works by Sibylle Bergemann, Matthias Hoch, Candida Höfer, Daniel Josef-sohn, Robert Mapplethorpe, Judith Joy Ross, Thomas Ruff and Tom Wood.
Franziska SchmidtT +49 30 885915 [email protected]
Preview exhibitionBerlin, 26 to 30 May 2017Grisebach, Fasanenstraße 25, 27 und 73Fri – Mon 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Tues 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
AuctionsBerlin, 31 May to 3 June 2017All catalogues and auction details online atgrisebach.com
Berlin, 9 May 2017
Auction no. 271 31 May 2017, 6 p.m.
Press release Modern and contemporary photographyat Grisebach